


Kindergarten Husband

by lunarwaves



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Zutara Week 2020, seeing childhood friends after forever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarwaves/pseuds/lunarwaves
Summary: A chance encounter in a coffee shop, 13 years from when it first began.-Zutara Week Day 1: Reunion
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 101
Collections: steambending





	Kindergarten Husband

_Present day_

He wouldn’t stop staring at her.

Katara wasn’t quite sure if he was spacing out or simply plotting to kill her, but his gaze continued to bore holes into her back as she stood in line to order her coffee.

The man was sitting in a corner, the laptop and textbook on his table forming a small barrier between him and the rest of the world. She also noticed a cup of coffee set aside and a notebook with a red cover, but all those things were pushed to the back of her mind as he continued to stare at her with a frustrated look on his face. 

It was creepy. 

The hair on the back of Katara’s neck prickled as she told the cashier her order, and she glimpsed the man finally go back to work out of the corner of her eye.

However, this respite was only temporary as he started staring again with a constipated-looking expression on his face while she waited for her coffee. Katara thought about the pepper spray in her messenger bag, preparing to whip it out and use it even in the midst of all these people.

This fact helped her bolster enough courage to finally approach the staring man. Katara slammed her paper cup heavily on the table, watching him snap out of his trance and jerk backwards.

“Why are you staring at me?” she spat out, turning her coldest glare on him.

To her surprise, he looked immediately apologetic, a faint blush forming on his unscarred cheek. “Oh, I’m sorry. You just looked really familiar. Sorry,” he repeated.

As the man nervously scratched at the back of his neck, Katara finally took a good look at him. He was right about the familiarity. The mismatched golden eyes and messy black hair seemed to tug at something in the depths of her memory, but she wasn’t sure what.

“Would you like to sit down?” he asked, previous hesitation diminished..

“I have pepper spray,” Katara said in lieu of a response, pulling out the empty chair opposite him and taking a seat. She liked to trust her gut in these kinds of situations, and right now her gut was telling her there was nothing to fear from this man. Although the initial staring was a bit disconcerting, there didn’t seem to be anything malicious about his presence.

“Okay?” The man raised an eyebrow, finally shutting the laptop in front of him and flipping the notebook closed. Katara got a glimpse of notes on the Krebs Cycle, with various diagrams and highlighted phrases.She was pleasantly surprised- though his handwriting looked like a scrawled mess, the notes themselves seemed well-organized and easy to read.

“So did we have a class together or something?” The second the question leaves her lips, Katara realizes that there’s no way this was a possibility. While their university was by no means small, there was no way she would have forgotten a face like this guy’s. Not just because of the scar either- he had some of the most distinct eyes she had ever seen and fantastic cheekbones.

The man frowns, seemingly reaching the same conclusion. He seems to do that a lot, Katara reflects, noting the tiny crease that forms above his nose. “Maybe? What’s your major?”

“Biology. Pre-med.”

“Me too, actually. But I don’t think we had any classes together.”

Katara sips at her coffee, struggling not to make a face. She had forgotten to grab sugar in her haste to confront the man. “Me neither. Sorry, what did you say your name was again?”

Once again he gets flustered. “I, uh. Zuko. I apologize, I should have introduced myself first-”

“It’s fine,” she cuts in. While the name is definitely unusual, Katara’s 100% sure she’s heard it before. “I’m Katara. I came here from Boston- maybe we went to school together?”

Zuko shakes his head, shaggy bangs falling into his eyes. “That’s unlikely. I’ve lived in California almost my whole life, but I was in Boston until kindergarten.”

Kindergarten. The memory hit her suddenly, bits and pieces from over a decade ago resurfacing in her mind..

***  
_13 Years Ago_

“Let’s get married.”

Katara stared at Zuko for a second before letting out a shriek. “Ew. No! You have cooties! I’m not doing that!”

“If you didn’t want to, you could just say that!” He shouted back, his voice harsh but tears welling in his eyes.

The sight of the boy crying made Katara feel a surge of guilt at her knee-jerk reaction. In her defense, she didn’t expect to be proposed to the second she stepped off the playground slide. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled before wrapping him in a hug. “I was just surprised. I will marry you!”

She knew that people who liked each other a lot would get married. That’s what her parents did, and as far as she knew, she definitely liked Zuko. He always drew her pictures when they had free time and helped her dig for roly polys during recess. No, Katara definitely wouldn’t mind being married to him.

Zuko beams, previous sadness forgotten. “Yay! How do we get married?”

Katara frowns at him. “I don’t know. Didn’t you just ask me? Shouldn’t you know?”

“I do know!” he snaps. “When people get married…” Zuko ponders for a second before reaching a conclusion. “They kiss. Yeah, they kiss.”

“They KISS?!” Once again she shrieks, but this time Zuko claps his hands over his ears. “That’s so gross.” Whenever Sokka saw their parents kissing, he would make retching noises and groan about ‘oogies’. While Katara’s reaction was nowhere near as extreme, she definitely understood why he acted that way.

“I didn’t make up this rule!”

“Fine!” Acting on impulse, Katara put her palms to either side of his face and pulled him closer to her. Their lips met in a short kiss, but so did their foreheads, colliding with a distinct ‘thunk’.

“Ow!” Zuko said, rubbing at the slight red welt that appeared. “You have a really hard head.”

“Yours is harder!” she fires back, affronted. “That hurt. But we’re married now.” Katara smooshes her lips together between her thumb and pointer finger, trying to see if they felt any different now that she and Zuko had kissed.

He wrinkles his nose. “Did anything change?”

Katara pauses, taking stock of the situation. Other than the throbbing at the front of her head, she feels the same. “No,” she admits. “Being married feels the same as being friends.”

“Yeah, same. Do you want to push me on the swings?”

Later when she goes home, Katara excitedly tells her family that she is now married. Sokka, in all his first grade glory, makes barfing noises while her parents smile gently.

The marriage lasted a record breaking three months, only ending when Zuko moved away the summer before first grade, slowly becoming a distant memory as time flew by.

***  
_Present day_

“You’re that Katara?” he asks, eyes wide with incredulity.

Honestly, she can’t even blame him for being surprised,

“I guess so.” 

“I don’t even remember much. We kissed didn’t we?” Zuko frowns, trying to recollect their short lived marriage.

Katara winces, a phantom pain briefly flicking across her forehead. “I wouldn’t really call that a kiss. But it was so long ago. I’m pretty sure there were bugs involved…”

“Were they roly polys? I remember messing with those a lot in kindergarten.” He makes a pinching motion with his hands, as though sizing up the insect.

“Probably.” She takes a sip of her neglected coffee, trying not to spit it out. God, it’s even worse cold. “It’s crazy though. That after 13 years of no contact, we run into each other. At the same university with the same major, no less.”

Zuko hums thoughtfully, as Katara digs through her bag to pull out her phone. “It’s definitely a happy coincidence. But I personally don’t believe in those. Maybe it was fate?” he says.

She rolls her eyes in response and unlocks her phone before opening the contacts page and pushing it towards him. “Could I have your number? I liked talking to you, and it would be nice to catch up more.”

“Didn’t you think I was creepy?” Zuko gives a tiny smile, tapping his phone number into the space provided.

“You deserved it,” Katara sniped back, though not without humor. “Just staring at me like that. It’s not normal.”

“I already told you I was sorry,” he said, passing the phone back to her. “I can promise it won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, okay. You should probably get back to studying anyways.” She eyes the thick books on the table in front of her and makes a mental note to finish her own biology reading when she reaches her dorm.

Zuko nods. “Sure. It was nice to see you again though. Just text me whenever, okay?” He reaches for his notebook, once again flipping open to his alarmingly organized notes.

“Yeah.” Katara gets up, grabbing her half-empty cup to toss it. “I’ll do that. It was nice to see you again too.”

**Author's Note:**

> *throws confetti* happy zutara week everyone!!!
> 
> come say hello to me on [tumblr](https://avatar-the-last-jerkbender.tumblr.com/)


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